Till the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in March-April, 2003, there were no references to India and the Hindus in the messages of Al Qaeda regarding the jihad against the Crusaders and the Jewish People.
However, this did not mean that it had not planned for a terrorist strike in India beforeMarch, 2003.Edited versions of written and oral testimonies made by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US homeland, before a US military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay were released by the US Defence Department at Washington DC on March 14, 2007. In his written testimony, he admitted his involvement in 29 terrorist strikes or planned terrorist strikes of Al Qaeda in his capacity as the Operational Director for Osama bin Laden.
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One of the planned terrorist strikes in which he admitted his involvement was an attack on the Israeli Embassy in India. The relevant portion of his testimony said: "I was responsible for surveying and financing for the destruction of the Israeli Embassy in India, Azerbaijan, the Philippines and Australia." The edited version of the testimony did not give any other details such as the year in which this was planned, what action was taken in pursuance of the plan, why the plan was not carried out etc. However, since KSM was arrested in Rawalpindi inMarch, 2003, it could be assessed that this planned attack on the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi must have been before March,2003.
After the US occupation of Iraq, reports started appearing in the media that India was under pressure from the US to send a Division to Iraq to join the coalition forces. Coinciding with these reports, the first reference to India appeared in an Al Qaeda statement. A message of Osama bin Laden cited the alleged US support to India on the Kashmir issue as one of the reasons for the Muslim anger against the US. In the past, bin Laden used to cite mainly the Palestinian issue and the presence of US troops in the Muslim holy land of Saudi Arabia as the main reasons for the Muslim anger against the US and Israel.
On September 28, 2003, Al Jazeera and another TV channel of the Gulf broadcast an audio tape purportedly of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian No.2 to Osama bin Laden in Al Qaeda. This message contained the first reference to the Hindus. It called upon Pakistani Army officers and soldiers to overthrow President Pervez Musharraf and warned: "The President would hand you over to the Hindus and flee to enjoy his secret bank accounts if India attacked Pakistan." Al-Zawahiri also condemned the then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to India, saying the agreements signed were "a drop in the ocean of the American-Jewish-Indian alliance against Muslims."
After the government of the then Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee rejected the US request to send Indian troops to Iraq, there was no further reference to India and the Hindus in the Al Qaeda statements of 2004 and 2005.
The references started re-appearing after the visit of President George Bush to India inMarch, 2006.In an audio message attributed to Osama bin Laden, which was broadcast by the Al Jazeera TV channel on April 23,2006, he for the first time made direct references to India and the Kashmir issue and spoke of an alleged Crusader-Zionist-Hindu conspiracy against the Muslims. He made the first reference to " a Crusader-Zionist-Hindu war against the Muslims" while talking of the alleged Western conspiracy to deprive Indonesia of East Timor. It was not clear why he referred to India in connection with the separation of East Timor from Indonesia. He then said: "Meanwhile, a UN resolution passed more than half a century ago gave Muslim Kashmir the liberty of choosing independence from India. George Bush, the leader of the Crusaders' campaign, announced a few days ago that he will order his converted agent [Pakistan President Pervez] Musharraf to shut down the Kashmir mujahidin camps, thus affirming that it is a Zionist-Hindu war against Muslims."
His reference was apparently to the remarks made by President Bush during his visit to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan from March 1 to4, 2006. Mr. Bush had stated at Delhi that he would be taking up with President Pervez Musharraf India's complaints that the jihadist terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory directed against India remained intact. bin Laden further added:"It is the duty for the Umma with all its categories, men, women and youths, to give away themselves, their money, experiences and all types of material support, enough to establish jihad particularly in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kashmir and Chechnya. Jihad today is an imperative for every Muslim. The Umma will commit a sin if it did not provide adequate material support for jihad."
Al Jazeera TV channel disseminated on December 20, 2006, extracts from a video recorded message of Zawahiri. The message was strongly critical of not only the US, but also the UN, which it projected as anti-Islam for giving membership to Israel and for legitimising through its Charter what it described as the occupation of historic Muslim lands by non-Muslims. In its criticism of the UN Charter, it said: " It (the Charter) also obligates them to recognize Russia’s occupation of Chechnya and the Muslim Caucasus, China’s occupation of East Turkistan, Spain’s occupation of Ceuta and Melilla and the occupation of other Muslim lands by non-Muslimgovernments which are part of the UN." There was no specific reference to J & K in this context. J&K, however, figured in another part of the message, which appealed to the Palestinians to support the cause of the Kashmiri Muslims. It appealed to the Palestinians in the following words: " My Muslim brothers in Palestine: all Muslims stand with you, and wish to offer their lives in exchange for the liberation of al-Aqsa, so stand with your Muslim brothers in Islam in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Iraq, and let the world hear your support of them."
In a message of Al Qaeda disseminated on August 5, 2007, Adam Yahiye Gadahn, alias Azzamal-Ameriki, who is believed to supervise As-Sahab, its Pakistan-based propaganda unit, warned the US as follows: "We shall continue to target you at home and abroad just as you target us at home and abroad." He described the US diplomatic missions in the Gulf area and Pakistan as "spy dens and military command and control centres from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq, and which still provide vital moral, military, material, and logistical support to the Crusade," and warned that "they shall continue to be legitimate targets for brave Muslims... unless you heed ourdemands. "The video message showed also stills from a car bomb explosion near the US Consulate in Karachi in March 2006, on the eve of Mr.Bush's arrival in Islamabad from New Delhi.
While Gadahn himself did not make any reference to India in his statement, an unnamed narrator said that "the targeting of Tel Aviv, Moscow and Delhi" is also "our legitimate right" and accused India of "killing more than 100,000 Muslims in Kashmir with US blessing."
Gadahn, who grew up in rural California, embraced Islam in the mid-1990s and moved to Pakistan. Since October 2004, he has appeared in at least seven al Qaeda videos in which he speaks in English and issuesthreats. His past threats were addressed mainly to the US. His latest threat is also addressed mainly to the US, but the video recording has a threat uttered to India, Israel and Russia spoken by an individual with a different voice, who has not been identified. It is not clear whether the threat is addressed to Indian nationals and interests, or to American diplomatic missions located in Indian territory. Since in the case of the Gulf countries, the threat is specifically addressed to the US diplomatic missions in those countries and since the threat is accompanied by visuals of the explosion directed at the US Consulate in Karachi in March,2006, it is likely that the threat is addressed to the US diplomatic missions in India.
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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.
